travels

As I continue to summarize the past summer’s adventures, I have to consult my almost non-existent memory, old photos, and of course, my assistant and rememberer of all things, the great Confucius Baig. Aka Sameea.

So my apologies for the delay on these last cross-country destination stories.

Picture this- you’ve just stepped off the most ridiculous train ride of your entire 22 years of existence. To compare it to a rollercoaster is cliché, and frankly just inappropriate, as there were exactly zero highs the entire time, and countless lows. Your body aches from 17 hours of awkward, uncomfortable maneuvering into different fetal positions in a broken chair. Your eyes are bloodshot like you’ve been smoking pot the entire day and a half. The only thing you’ve consumed was some sort of styrofoam-tasting pasta dish, along with gusts of sweating Oregon-ian hippie body odor. You feel as though you’ve hit rock bottom (dramatic).

If there’s one important fact about myself, it’s that I love donuts. No, love isn’t the right word. I ADORE donuts. I am a donut aficionado. An enthusiast. A promoter. If I could look at pictures of donuts on Instagram all day, it would be the only thing I would do. On top of eating them. If a genie granted me 3 wishes the first would be that the more donuts I ate, the skinnier I got. But then I would probably become invisible. So I would ask that donuts were healthy, and grew on trees, both like apples. Ah, what a dream

The funny thing is how basic donuts are. Literally, they are just fried dough. But with colorful icings. And sprinkles. And sometimes even delicious surprise fillings! See I can’t even denounce my announcing.

Anyway my point is that I was ECSTATIC to go to Voodoo Donut Shop in Portland. And it delivered. Sameea got one of the LEGIT voodoo doll shaped donuts (with Bavarian crème inside maybe?) and I had a regular and then I even got one WITH BACON ON IT. Mom, I can hear you already- gee that is like really killing it Alex. And yes, I may have been gilding the lilly, but just as much as I like saying giiiiiilding the lilly, I liked that donut. A lot.

You don’t hear the phrase/see that type of donut often.

And that is the story of our trip to Portland.

Just kidding.

Back to getting off the train. We thought we had endured the worst of it. Little did we know we’d get a call from the girl we were staying with (a friend of Sameea’s), letting us know we could no longer stay at her place for the night. Staaaaaandard. So now were homeless in a rando city. With big, nerdy camping backpacks on our backs and faces that looked like we had been run over by the train, not riding it.

Sorry Nana

Whenever predicaments like this happens to Sameea and I, we turn that frown upside down and say WHY NOT. Cue scene:

There’s a fancy hotel with a room available right near the center of town. We can’t afford it. But that’s why God invented credit cards. WHY NOT!?

There’s a robe in the closet. I don’t have a reason to wear it. WHY NOT!?

Should we get room service too? It’s only $7 million dollars. WHY NOT!? No we didn’t get room service. But we thought about, that counts right?

So after our ordeal of getting to the city and finding a place to sleep that robbed us blind, there was only one thing we could do: have a drink. We ended up at a concert in a venue downtown that had a bar. And a lot of young people who couldn’t get into the bar section. So we could at least could maintain our positions near the dispensary of all things heavenly (beer on tap). We made friends with some guys from Montana (talk about a random state!) and ended up talking about it being a random state.

The next day we walked around Portland, to what we would normally refer to as “seeing the city sights”. Except that, honestly, there were no sights to see. And the more we walked, the more confused we got. I felt like I was time traveling back into a music video from the 90s. Specifically something by Nirvana. Where everyone was wearing grungy jean jackets and flannels tied around their waists. But not like British punk rock grungy, more like not-showering-for-days-grungy. But still cool, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Then we stumbled upon a food truck congregation of sorts and went wild! We heard about a Czech food cart we HAD to try so we stopped their first. The cart was called Tabor, known for their Schniztelwich (sp?) but we had their Eggplant Sandwich, Baklažán: roasted, breaded & pan fried eggplant on a Ciabatta with paprika spread, fresh parsley, lettuce & horse radish. Let me just say the dang thang hit the spot. Seeing as we are food entrepreneurs, we then tried some Indian food from another truck. The weather was killin it, and the food was on point. So, naturally, we were in good spirits.

Then we headed back to the train for round 2 of what-in-the-world-is-happening.com.

I encourage you all to watch the first episode in the show Portlandia. Then, maybe you will understand.